A retired primary school teacher has been hauled before a disciplinary panel after branding his pupils "pests, idiots and buffoons".

Roger Griffin, a former music teacher, was told by his school not to come into work while during its Ofsted inspection and, in retaliation, played the piano in the school hall for the entire day.

In response to complaints about his language, Griffin wrote a letter to Beechview School in High Wycombe, Bucks, saying: "Persistent miscreants who act like delinquents can expect to be treated as such.

"If they don't like being called idiots, fools, clowns, buffoons or any similar epithet, there is a very simple solution: don't act like one," the Daily Telegraph reported.

Griffin, who had worked at the school for nine years, was reported by the acting assistant headteacher who said he had been "unduly punitive" when he put three children in detention for fidgeting.

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Griffin told the Teaching Agency disciplinary hearing in Coventry, West Midlands, one child had been "cavorting" in the classroom and asked the panel: "How do you describe that sort of behaviour without using that sort of language? There is no other way, is there?"

The 66-year-old, who is now retired, faces two charges of serious misconduct towards staff and pupils, who were aged eight and nine years old, between December 2007 and May 2008.